Three Strikes of Injustice

Horrible Injustice: HSBC Above Laws, Woman Gets Life Sentence

Another USA republican ad

Will USA survive till 2025?

While I disagree with Pat Buchanan's notion that America is founded on a Christian value and it will be the Christian value to hold America together, the signs of the collapse of USA are too obvious to anyone. It is strange that those within USA cannot see it coming. You may buy the 4-hour audio book via the Amazon link or download here.

Financially, there are two problems:
(1) 15 Trillion government debts which is about 100% GDP of USA, and with about another 55 Trillion (present discounted value) of committed medicare and social securities in the pipeline.
(2) The trade deficit has been increasing and there is no sign of reversal. We all know that a household cannot get out of trouble by more borrowing, ditto for a country.


However there are some good news. Of the 8 Trillion, only 8% are in foreign ownership. That means if USA government defaults, if won't be a foreign power forcing her to do so. Of the 55 Trillion debts for the future, a large trunk is related to healthcare. At present, USA is spending, per capital, twice as much as the average of developed countries (the next 4 highest spenders average USD4000 per capital verses USA's UDS8000) [source], adapting any other country's healthcare system will save the government at least half of the CBO debts.

Socially, there are
(1) large inequalities of income
(2) overblown healthcare expenses
(3) declining performances of the educational system [some sample data]
(4) delusional public wishful thinking that a god may save you

Politically, the current system is completely corrupted.

It is dominated by warmongers. USA is currently engaged in two wars (that we know of) and maintaining a huge number of military bases oversea . The defense spending (should be called the aggression budget) is larger than seven of the next highest spenders combined. How could a population of 5% (globally) spend 46% of global total military expenses? How could it be sustainable?

In China, just an example, if a government official is found corrupted, s/he may be executed. While I do not condone corruption and capital punishment, at least symbolically, the government is against corruption. The USA political system has now corrupted to the point that such bribery has been legalized to be called "lobbying". Occupy Wall Street movements has been calling out loud and clear than citizens demand cleaning up the corruption and put Wall Street in check. Has any political leader acknowledged the cry and at least commence a dialog?

This brings me to the reason I am writing this post. Here is a potential occupant of the White House. What are the issues he focused on? People going to church? Gay marriages?


Here is a response I approve.


and this is a most appropriate one to the stupidity of USA's possible future "leader".


To remain strong, the first step is to acknowledge that USA is weak now. Do some evidence-based researching and come up with some good policies to help USA citizens to get back up on their feet, make a decent living and rebuild from the ground up. There is no god and hence there will be no divine help anytime soon. To fund the rebuild, get the tax rates back to the 1950's to the 1960's. I want to see USA back on her feet not only because I have three sisters and mothers in USA (as legal citizens), I hate to see those desperately clinging to power use the horrible weapons of mass destruction to her own people or to some other countries. USA has a lot WMDs and still refuses to be scrutinized by neutral international bodies! The collapse of an economy and/or a country is going to be bloody and painful - for everyone.

Was Linda Katechi sincere?

As the Chancellor of a University, was she naive enough to believe that police would not use inappropriate force? If yes, she did not deserve to be the Chancellor. If no, she did not deserve to be the Chancellor.

Hindsight is always prefect. But the moral call, which is the critical attribute of a leader, is not to commit wrong so that hindsight would be unnecessary. That's the leadership. Has Lida Katechi demonstrated sufficient leadership to remain as the chancellor of any university?



As the police retreat, was it clear who were on the moral high ground? The cowardice of the police was in plain sight. When it was a few students, they used excessive brutality. When they were out-numbered, they just retreated and could not stand up for what they were supposed to do in the first place.



cross posted to Random Walk in Learning

What can USA citizens do?

I left Hong Kong after witnessing what had happened at Tiananmen Square in 1989

Now this is happening to USA citizens [source]:

Has the government overstepped the rights of citizens? Is the brutality towards peaceful demonstrators justifiable? Are there government officials condemning the police violence [read this to understand what the pray really is.]? What has a free society become?

In Superstition We Trust

By Pat Condell


I would almost agree with everything, except that by the time an atheist in USA can actually be elected as their president in couple of hundred years, USA will NOT be the most powerful on Earth.

The fall of USA - 2

When the potential political leader of a nation is SO SO delusional, that's a sign of the fall of the nation.

The fall of USA

When 78% of the public believes in a barbaric god, such a society would not be able to advance further - a result of the failed education system to teach their future citizens to think based on evidence.

Inspiring speech

USA politics should be none of my business. Unfortunately, USA is still the largest economy, with most weapons of mass destruction. Hence, her policies have worldwide implications. What would happen when the USA working people go hungry? What if there is a civil war within USA - the middle class and the poor unite to fight for their survival?

Religion and politics

Many USA citizens are quick to comment on other countries' lack of rule of law. But hold a blind eye towards their government's own breaking of the constitution. Lucky that the court has upheld the constitution.

The head of Hawaii Citizens for the Separation of State and Church has been acquitted of a disorderly conduct charge stemming from his arrest while objecting a prayer being said at the beginning of a state Senate session in April.

When Senate President Colleen Hanabusa introduced a reverend to say the invocation, Mitch Kahle stood from his seat in the gallery of the Senate chambers and said, "I object. My name is Mitch Kahle and I object to this prayer on the grounds that it's a violation of the first amendment of the constitution of the United States. I object."

Kahle's protest lasted about seven seconds. Then he stopped talking and sat down. The Senate's Sergeant at Arms was determined to remove Kahle. When Kahle resisted he was forcefully removed and roughed up. The incident was caught by several video cameras including a camera belonging to Hawaii News Now.

"Then what they did to add insult to injury was, they arrested him for disorderly conduct," said William Harrison, Kahle's attorney. [source]

From the comment of the youTube above:

if this had been the other way around, and a religious activist was beaten and had their constitutional rights violated, people would have been up in arms. it would have been plastered all over the news. atheists are the most discriminated-against group of people in the world today.

Separation of Church and Government

The latest survey by PEW forum on religion and public life came out. Increasing number of people in USA believed that your president is a Muslim (from 11% in March 2009 to 18% in August 2010)- what a joke! Something is very wrong.

First, the religious belief of a political leader should NOT be an issue - but it was and still is. Second, some propaganda machinery must be at work to paint an Islamic image onto Obama and the fact that the public opinion can be changed by such propaganda says a lot about the unsophisticated American public. Third, the perception of Obama's religion is linked to his job approval.

There is one good sign, among all these bad news is that more people is saying that churches should keep out of politics. Similarly, more is also saying churches should keep out of expressing views on social and political questions.

How can you not be angry?

a Dr. Gregory Thompson:

"The government schools are anti-Christian, atheistic and pagan, and they are against God, family, and country. Do not call yourself "Christian" saying you love the children, yet have children in a government school, k-12 through college. Christian priests, pastors, and bishops hate their congregations if they do not warn their people to get out of the government schools. Pastor, you must help the parents with this issue of education. Jesus said "love your neighbor as yourself". If you do not tell your neighbors to get their children out of the government schools, you hate them instead of love them. To know this truth, and not do anything about it in your area of influence is sin. James 4:17 - "Therefore to him that knows to do good and does it not, to him it is sin." If Church or Government leaders say otherwise, it is a lie from hell. ...."

WOW, how can you not be angry?

John Freshwater, Gay Bashing Science Teacher, Burned Crosses into His Students' Arms

I don't know what to say - the American education system is dead wrong! [information on wikipedia]

Science teacher does not believe in evolution.
Science teacher burnt crosses to kids' arms.
For 15 months, the school district cannot set him.
The family got $5,000 while the men in suit got $115,000 out of the district's public purse.

What a system!

Even more ridiculous is the support this "teacher" was getting. Disgusting!

Update [posted 4th Feb, 2010]: the Columbus Dispatch reported the Freshwater is filing a counter-claim and seeking $500,000 in compensatory damages and $500,000 in punitive damages.... Freshwater contends that the defendants violated his constitutional right to free speech, discriminated against him based on religion and defamed him through the investigative report. The saga goes on...

What?!

[source]

“Note: Just to let you it is not that we don’t believe in things like that, it is just misleading when you talk about it being billions of years old, when we all know that the world is only about 6,000 years old. So why would I pay so that you can misslead my children, your world is just a revolving(?), ours has a start and an end. God created the world. He created animals and man all in the same week. It was also Adam who named all the animals, they will do the essay ‘Rock and Minerals’ but it might not be 5 pages long, and about billions of years, it will be according to the Bible.”

America, you have just lost the leadership in the 21st century when you believe Flint stone is a documentary!

The future of USA

Of course, I am not an American and I have no interest of USA remaining to be the leading economy in the world. But, I just cannot help but to urge my readers from USA to watch this video - from the Nobel Conference 2009. If USA wants to remain competitive, USA needs to turn around and really focuses on science and educates your citizens.

BTW, for those wondering whether I knew the answer to why summer is hot and winter is cold, I can tell you that I know the answer without looking up - ie I know the answer from my active knowledge bank. If you don't know the answer, you need to get up to speed in your science literacy. Just to give you a hint on that question, during summer in the Northern hemisphere, those of us living in downunder are in winter. So it cannot be due to the ellipticity of the Earth's orbit around the sun.

Who is intolerant?

The catholic church uses its weapon, not to administer the sacrament, to pressure US congressman Patrick Kennedy to stop supporting abortion.

Where is the separation of church and state? Well pressure to a congressman is just the opposite of lobbying.

American founding fathers were not as religious as most would like to think

Fora.tv

American History for the Christians

Politics, Science & Religion

No doubt the three domains in the title are inter-related. Here is a piece by Sam Harris published in the New York Times on the nomination of Francis Collins to be the next director of National Institutes of Health. Harris' concluding paragraph sums up his worry and motivation of writing the article:

Francis Collins is an accomplished scientist and a man who is sincere in his beliefs. And that is precisely what makes me so uncomfortable about his nomination. Must we really entrust the future of biomedical research in the United States to a man who sincerely believes that a scientific understanding of human nature is impossible?

To me, it is interesting to learn how a Scientist may reconcile Science with god. Here is how Harris describes Collins' thought process:

Dr. Collins has written that science makes belief in God “intensely plausible” — the Big Bang, the fine-tuning of nature’s constants, the emergence of complex life, the effectiveness of mathematics, all suggest the existence of a “loving, logical and consistent” God....Dr. Collins ... insists that at some moment in the development of our species God inserted crucial components — including an immortal soul, free will, the moral law, spiritual hunger, genuine altruism, etc.

The difficulty for me is to reconcile the "loving, logical and consistent" claim of a Christian god who would be ready to suspend/disrupt the working logical and consistent order of the Universe to prayers in order to exhibit "loving". More importantly, if human is the purpose of the creation of the Universe - hence deserves the full attention of god - why Earth is NOT at the centre of the Universe. The almighty god would have created a Universe where Earth would be at the centre.

I share the concerns Harris has. This Collins would be put in a position of huge political power and tremendous among of resources. Would he be able to exercise judgement without bias due to his religious is questionable.